Barclays Center Jobs Not Up To Par?

Leslie Albrecht of dnainfo.com reports that most of the Barclays Center jobs are part-time with no benefits. Even though NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg had listed Barclays Center as a top achievement of his administration during Thursday’s State of the City speech, Albrecht reports that only 100 of the 2,000 jobs at the arena are full-time jobs.

Forest City Ratner Companies spokeswoman Ashley Cotton stated at a recent public meeting that although the part-time jobs at the arena do not offer health insurance, they do offer the advantages of being part of an organized union:

“There are no health benefits because they’re part-time employees,” Cotton said. “However, we feel, and hopefully they do too, that there’s a benefit to being part of a union.”

According to Bloomberg, 75% of the arena staff are Brooklynites. And although this does bring about a welcome change for unemployed residents of Brooklyn, Gib Veconi of the advocacy group “Brooklyn Speaks,” argues that the number and quality of the jobs at the Barclays Center do not measure up to what was originally promised.

Brooklyn journalist and known arena critic, Norman Oder, now working for the blog Atlantic Yards Report, adds that however helpful the new jobs are for the unemployed Brooklynites, the compensation they will receive will not pay for independent housing and health insurance.

Comments

Wait a minute. You mean that all those ushers, food service workers and security people who are there when I get to the game, and who are still there when I leave after the game, aren’t there every day, even when there is no game?! Do you mean to say that Barclays’s employment picture resembles that of MSG, Citi Field and every other sports facility in the world? Who could possibly have anticipated THAT?